


Whumptober 2020 27 Earthquake

by frankie_mcstein



Series: Whumptober 2020 [27]
Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Cave-In, Drama, Explosions, Gen, Rick and T.C. save the day, Whumptober 2020, hurt magnum, near-drowning, scared Higgins, trapped limbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27227359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankie_mcstein/pseuds/frankie_mcstein
Summary: Whumptober 2020 prompt 27- EarthquakeHe kept his voice casual as he told her about the water that was rising around him, and she tried not to panic as she realised she couldn't get his leg out from under the rocks.
Relationships: Juliet Higgins & Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV
Series: Whumptober 2020 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947172
Comments: 18
Kudos: 55





	Whumptober 2020 27 Earthquake

**Author's Note:**

> So I do stretch the prompt a little again. Oahu doesn't have actual earthquakes so I went with more of a man-made tremor. My apologies.

Higgins was starting to feel desperate. It had been hours since the ground beneath them had rolled and shaken, collapsing the entrance to the cave she and Magnum had walked into just a few minutes before. Finding that Magnum had been trapped under a fallen rock had been bad enough, her efforts to dig him out leaving him panting in pain and her barely able to move her left hand. But then he'd mentioned the water that seemed to be rising. 

He'd kept his voice casual, like it was no big deal, but her heart had squeezed against itself for a moment. She'd tried again to shift the rubble that was holding him down, hoping the larger rock would move once the smaller rocks were out of the way. But her left hand had started to drip with blood and her fingers had started to lose what little strength they still had. And then Magnum had screamed, a sudden and hideous sound that had terrified her.

He hadn't even been able to form the words to beg her to stop, just clenched his jaw shut and breathed frantically through his nose. His one hand had moved to his hip, the furthest he could reach down his pinned leg, but the other had been scrabbling at the ground and Higgins had grabbed it. She'd winced at the strength of his grip as he'd squeezed her fingers but kept her mouth shut while the pain finally subsided.

"I'm so sorry," she'd whispered after he finally opened his eyes again. 

"Not your fault," he'd managed to reply, but it had been clear he was running out of energy, the pain sapping his strength.

And the water had kept on rising. She'd tried to find where it was coming from, feeling around in the pitch black for a hole of some sort, not wanting to waste the battery on her cell with the flashlight. Like it would even have helped if she could have found the source. And she'd tried scrambling around on the pile of fallen rock at the cave's entrance, nearly breaking her arm when a rock shifted underneath her, hunting for just a single bar of signal on her cell to get an SOS out. 

A second tremor had thrown her from the top of the rubble, her cell vanishing between two rocks, and she'd crawled back to Magnum, scurrying like an animal through the dark, to try to shield him as best she could. His hands had pressed to the back of her head as she'd thrown herself over him, him trying to protect her while she tried to protect him. A piece of stone from the ceiling of the cave had slammed into her back, leaving her breathless. 

Magnum had held her as she'd choked on her own need to breathe, rubbing his hands lightly over her shoulders until she'd managed to catch her breath again. 

"I didn't think Oahu had earthquakes," he'd mused as she had carefully brushed dust and dirt away from his face.

"It doesn't. I have no idea what's going on." She'd been aiming for frustrated but had a horrible feeling she'd just sounded a little lost. Certainly Magnum had thought a reassuring smile was the right response.

And then she'd noticed that her legs were soaked. The water had started to rise faster; something must have shaken loose after the second impossible quake. She'd moved to crouch by Magnum's head, ignored his groan and the fire that had raced up her left arm at the strain on her still bleeding hand, and she'd lifted his torso and shifted herself forward.

So now he was struggling to stay awake, making her think he must be bleeding even past the pressure on his leg. She was starting to feel like the rock that had knocked the breath out of her might have done some real damage, her back muttering angry protests at every inhale. If she didn't listen to Magnum and somehow get to higher ground, she would drown. And if she moved, Magnum would drown in the pool of water that was growing deeper with every passing minute.

It was already worryingly high, creeping around their stomachs, far too high for him to breathe without her holding him up. 

"Please, Juliet. There's a ledge up there."

"Shut. Up. Thomas."

She'd already realised that, with his head resting on her shoulder, he would be covered by the water first. The sickening irony of a SEAL drowning was burning in her chest, compounded by the fact that he had saved her from drowning all those months ago and that she wouldn't be able to save him. 

She had a vague hope that the sheer volume of water would somehow free him. Something must be keeping the rock from lying directly on his leg because he could feel the pain, so the water might shift enough of the smaller pieces that the larger boulder would move and free his leg. Or maybe it would soften the ground and his leg would sink into it just far enough that, between them, they could pull him free.

She knew it was ridiculous. If anything shifted, Magnum's leg would be crushed. And the floor of the cave was solid rock; it would take hundreds of years for water to soften it. And even if they could move, where were they going to go? They were trapped by the landslide that had blocked up the entrance, moving from the ground would just delay the inevitable.

The thought pulled a heavy sigh from her that made her entire torso burn and vision blur at the pain. She felt a slight movement and then pressure on her hand and spread her fingers to let Magnum interlace them with his own. He squeezed gently, as if trying to assure her that everything was going to be okay. She was mortified by the tears she felt welling up; he was possibly bleeding out, almost definitely going to drown, and he was worried about her.

She returned the pressure with an almost fierce squeeze of her own. _ 'I won't leave you,' _ she tried to make her grip say, and she hoped he got the message. After everything he had survived, everything life had thrown at him, he was going to die because of her, because she wasn't strong enough to move a few piddly little rocks. The least she could do was sit with him, hold him, make sure that he didn't have to go into the dark alone.

Sitting on the wet stone ground, soaked with surprisingly chilly water, she was starting to feel downright numb and worryingly tired, and she wondered if maybe they would pass out from hypothermia before the water covered them. She remembered the burn of the sea flooding her lungs, the panic of the pond water spilling down her throat; whoever said drowning was a peaceful way to go was a liar, and she thought it might be better if they were both unconscious when it happened.

She pulled her free hand away from Magnum's chest and tangled her fingers in his hair, scratching his scalp gently.  _ 'Just relax,' _ she thought with each motion of her fingers. ' _ It's okay to just let go.' _ She didn't want to feel the futile struggle of his body as it tried to find oxygen in water. She didn't want to hold him while he jerked and spasmed and clawed at his own throat. Better for them both if he just drifted away now. She could deal with dying alone if it meant that he didn't have to. 

He shifted against her a little, his head lolling to the side, and she quickly pushed her hand to his cheek and lifted it back against her shoulder. She tilted her own head so that his could nestle into the crook of her neck. Her back immediately complained at the movement, but she didn't care. She could feel Magnum's breathing, shallow and slow, against her skin and was pretty sure he wouldn't be waking up again before the water covered him. It was already up to the bottom of his chest; she could feel it lapping around their joined hands.

"Just sleep," she whispered into the oppressive black that seemed to be weighing her down. "I'll take care of you," and she choked on the lie, tears starting to fall. Because she couldn't take care of him, not this time.

Magnum slowly grew colder in her arms, the blood loss and the chill of the water and the rocky floor all sapping away his heat. And Higgins cried weakly, no energy left to sob or wail. She just sat in the dark and let the tears trickle down her cheeks before they were lost to the rising water that was swirling around them.

…

Something had changed, but she couldn't figure out what. There was something new, something that was tugging at her, badgering her into waking back up. But her mind couldn't seem to get a fix on it. She didn't know what it was that was different, just that something was going on. 

Her first thought was Magnum, a panicked little idea that flew her mind like a scared bird. She forced her neck to move, letting her head fall against his, and felt the gentle sigh of his breaths. ' _ Still alive _ , _ ' _ and her mind sunk back into itself at the relief. But then, what had pulled her back from the soft cloud she'd been lying on?

She let her eyes drift around, the colours they had been imagining in the solid blackness of before dissipating into nothingness in the face of the weak glimmer that was shining down from somewhere above her. She blinked at it, idly thinking that the water looked quite pretty and inviting in that soft light, like liquid diamonds. The thought amused her- swimming in diamonds would be painful, she was sure- and it rattled about, bouncing off the walls of her mind, telling her she had missed something.

The light vanished, blocked by something passing in front of it, and she pouted. She had liked that little ray, it had seemed quite friendly and she was sorry it had left. Ah well, nothing lasts forever, as her grandfather used to say. Why had he said that? Was it when she'd broken up with her first-ever boyfriend after catching him making out with Debbie? Or was it when their dog had died after getting bitten by an adder?

A noise crashed down over her, then a wave of water swamped her. She gasped and jerked and felt Magnum slump down out of her grip.

No! No no no, she couldn't let him go! She had promised she wouldn't! She had promised she wouldn't let him die alone! The panic surged through her and drove her to force her body to bend, screaming at the white-hot agony that erupted through her back even as she ducked her head under the surface. The small glimmer of light was back, but it was too weak to penetrate the gloom of the water. She reached out blindly, hands searching desperately, numb and useless as they were.

Her fingers stopped against something, she crossed her hands at the wrists, hoping it wasn’t a rock, praying it was Magnum, and forced herself back upright, dragging her prize with her. In the weak light, she could see the water cascading down Magnum’s face, his eyes still closed, his open mouth full of water. She couldn’t think of what to do. She couldn’t move him, he was still trapped, and how was she meant to perform CPR on someone whose only support was her arms?

And then he coughed, twisting his head, nearly dunking himself back into the water, and she tried to slide herself back under him, to get back into her cramped little squat, to keep holding him above the water. The other hands were a godsend, helping to support his deadweight, lifting his head back onto her shoulder, slipping an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.

She felt like she was on the verge of passing out as the relief flooded through her. She had just enough time to realise that she only had two hands, that she hadn’t brought an oxygen mask with her, that someone else was in the cave, and then her eyes rolled back in her head.

Rick swore as Higgins and Magnum both slipped back under the water, quickly throwing his hands out. He yelled for T.C. to hurry up as he caught Higgins with one arm around her shoulders, dragging her back upright with relative ease. Trying to reach around her to grab Magnum wasn’t so easy, and he had to settle for grabbing his friend under his chin and tugging hard. The splash as T.C. dropped in through the hole the rescue team had made nearly made him lose his grip on them both.

“Grab Tommy,” he shouted, feeling his hands slipping.

T.C. lunged forward, moving past Rick as quickly as he could, and wrapped his arms around Magnum’s unconscious figure. He easily lifted him higher, head and shoulders clearing the water, and they both took a moment to assess the ridiculous situation.

The rescue team would be entering the cave in just a minute or so, insisting on shoring up the small hole first. Rick and T.C., perfectly unconcerned with their own safety when they knew their friends were in danger, had simply nodded along while the man in charge had explained, and then jumped right on in as soon as he’d turned his back.

“Feels like T.M. is trapped. I’ll stay here with him.”

Rick nodded, adjusted his grip on Higgins to carry more of her weight, and started heading back over to the entry point. He shouted up to the rescue team, quickly filling them in on the water level and the potential for serious crush injuries. He skipped the part where they would have been too late if they had waited. He and T.C. would have nightmares about it; no need for anyone else to suffer.

And then everything seemed to happen at once; ropes were passed down along with a harness for him to tie around Higgins, more men came dropping through the hole to free Magnum, a second line was dropped in so Rick and T.C. could climb out, the first ambulance took off with its siren screaming… It was a lot to process, and no one seemed too interested in talking to either Rick or T.C.

The pair looked around as the ambulance carrying Magnum took off after the first. The rescue team was double-checking no one else had been caught in the cave-in, Katsumoto was inventing new charges to throw at the men whose experiment with dynamite fishing had caused the cave-in, and they both just wanted to make sure their ohana was okay.

While the rescue team was discussing the possibility of dangerous subsidence from the flooded cave amongst themselves, and Katsumoto was happily shoving the two would-be poachers into the back of his car, the Island Hoppers van slipped away from the clearing. With a little luck, Higgins would be awake in just a few hours, and, even though the EMTs were pretty sure he would need surgery, Magnum probably wouldn’t be too far behind. 

They would both have questions about how the cave had collapsed, why it had flooded. Neither of them would be surprised that Katsumoto, knowing they were in the area where reports had come in of explosions, had spent over an hour trying to search for them on foot before Higgins’ cell had suddenly thrown out a signal that HPD's tech team had traced. And, naturally, neither of them would even pretend to be a good patient until they knew the other was all right. Which meant they would need their brothers there with them. And that was where they would be.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure it's at all clear how Higgins' mobile sent a signal out, I wanted a hospital scene that would clear it up but just don't have the time. So, basically, when she dropped it, it coincidentally landed in just the right place to get a bar of signal.


End file.
